Eye - 02 December 2011

From garden artwork to surprising Cinders

Cast in stone

Friends have written to Eye, following the story on habitats, of the rich wildlife and plants to be found in their Meeting house grounds.  Birds and bees are one thing – but what about art?

Win Sutton, convenor of the premises committee of Wolverhampton Local Meeting, has now contributed a creative twist to the story by revealing how a Quaker couple became cast in stone in their Meeting house grounds.

Win writes: ‘A few years ago we had to remove a beech tree. More recently, we discovered that a rock which was a nuisance in the garden is, in actual fact, a rather permanent geological feature. Neville Stanyer, one of our two hardworking volunteer gardeners, had taken a “slice” from the tree and done a carving of an early Quaker couple.’ (See photograph).

Win says that Neville had the inspired thought that he could hide the irremovable object with a work of art. The bricks that form the plinth covering the obstruction are recycled from a local builders’ yard.

He adds that ‘the work is admired by all who see it.’

Poetry matters

Poets are sometimes criticised for ‘living in a cloud’ that hovers just above their ‘ivory tower’.

Most of them have a different view. Many write to reach a wide audience and to touch and move them. They tackle everyday subjects and often difficult ones. Quaker Philip Gross is one of them. He is a poet who has always aimed to ‘speak to people beyond the (small) world of poetry’.

Deep Field, his new book of poems published by Bloodaxe Books, is a Poetry Society recommendation,  but Philip is probably just as pleased to have the very unusual endorsement of a review in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet.

The journal has made the imaginative decision to review the book because of the themes that Philip addresses in his poems, and the way he deals with them, such as geriatic care.

The cover information on the book provides some background to the powerful and impressive collection:  ‘In his nineties Philip Gross’s father, a wartime refugee, began to lose his several languages, first to deafness, then profound aphasia. Deeply thought as well as deeply felt, these poems reach into that gulf to find him – through the recovery of histories both spoken and unspoken as well as an excavation of the spoken word itself.’ (See poem on page 15)

Philip will be reading his poems at Friends House on 7 December 2011 at 6pm.

From clerk to Cinders

Readers of the Friend may wonder what Lis Burch, the clerk to BYM, does in the rest of the year. This picture may give a clue. She is performing the arduous role of Cinderella at Louise Weeks’ 40th birthday party!

Louise lives in a Scope Home in Northampton and Friends from Northampton and her home Meeting of Sibford met to celebrate with a huge tea. Louise had decided that instead of presents she would like guests to donate to the Oxfam East Africa Famine Appeal and raised £1,141.

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